Friday, July 31, 2009

A follow up to the case of Clive Bishop, who was to be awarded compensation for a false claim. It appears that the government is fighting it on the basis that it wasn't a "crime of violence" against Mr. Bishop.

Let us examine this double-standard more closely:

The UK compensates victims of even non-forcible rape and even inappropriate touching over clothing.

Prior to Mr. Bishop's case, at least, the UK did not compensate men who were falsely accused of rape, no matter how terrible their victimization. To verify this, we wrote to the CICA and asked if a false rape claim would be covered, noting that such claims often have the effect of mentally (not to mention financially) destroying the falsely accused. We received a prompt and professional response that included the following: "Under the terms of our scheme unfortunately this would not be covered. Under the terms of our scheme for eligibility, applicants need to be the victim of a violent crime."

It is important to underscore the terrible double-standard here: the victim of a single instance of a sexual act over the clothing is entitled to compensation, but a man falsely accused of rape who is arrested and jailed for weeks, months or even years, and who is subjected to untold mental agonies, the loss of his good name, and all manner of other indignities, is entitled to nothing.

The victimization of men falsely accused of rape, no matter how egregious their injuries, is regarded as less worthy of society’s protection than the victimization of non-forcible rape victims, no matter how slight their injuries.

A father's hopes for justice and compensation after he was falsely accused of rape could be shattered by yet another court battle.

Clive Bishop was on the brink of making legal history earlier this year when he managed to win the right to compensation for the trauma he suffered when a drunken woman made up an allegation of rape against him.

His life was left in tatters when police made a pre-dawn call to his house in the village of Walton, near Street, Somerset, in February 2007 and, in front of his wife, arrested him on allegations of rape.

After a series of court battles and appeals Mr Bishop finally won the right to compensation.

But now the Government wants to challenge that right in the High Court because the crime against him was not a "crime of violence".

It was months before the so-called victim, teenage mum Kirsty Palmer, of Pilton, admitted she had made the whole story up, in the face of overwhelming evidence collated by Mr Bishop.

In the months that followed the strain on Mr Bishop was so immense – including keeping the case a secret from work colleagues, family and friends so as not to prejudice police action against his false accuser – that he had to have counselling.

The case has cost him thousands of pounds, including police impounding his car and keeping the rear seats, and the loss of his second income.

But earlier this year Mr Bishop was delighted when he was told the Criminal Injuries

Compensation Authority (CICA) decided, on appeal, that he did deserve financial compensation after his life was left in tatters by the allegations. At first CICA had rejected Mr Palmer's application, stating that he had not suffered from an actual physical attack.

But Mr Bishop was determined not to give up and took the case to appeal in May this year.

"The mental anguish that has been caused to me, and my wife, has been horrific and our lives will never be the same again," he said.

After CICA denied Mr Bishop compensation, he was helped by Victim Support to make another application, but that was also rejected.

"I went along to Street Citizen's Advice Bureau who were great and helped me to find a solicitor who was willing to make an appeal on my behalf to an appeal tribunal." The tribunal, held on the eve of Mr Bishop's 50th birthday, was hugely traumatic, said Mr Bishop, as he had to relive the circumstances again.

"I was shaking like a leaf throughout, just trembling," he said. But after hearing evidence, including from the leading detective on the case, the tribunal panel returned with the verdict they hoped would help Mr Bishop celebrate his birthday: that he was eligible for compensation.

But now Mr Bishop has been told by letter the Government is to fight that ruling.

"They are to apply for a Quashing Order in the High Court in London, to have my ruling overturned," he said.

"Among the claims they are making is that the crime against me was not a crime of violence and I was not in fear of any immediate danger.

"I wasn't expecting this. I thought the appeal in May would be it and I would eventually hear what compensation I would receive. Now it looks like we have to go through it all again. I suspect though this time I won't be asked to give evidence, that it will be more about the legal argument.

If you are a man between ages 18 and 26, you need to register for Selective Service. According to the Annual Report of the Director of Selective Service to Congress: "During FY 2008, 138, 956 names and addresses of suspected violators were provided to DoJ" -- every one of them male, because women are exempt from registering. Why were the names turned over to DoJ? "[F]or possible prosecution and investigation for his failure to register" with Selective Service.

What might happen to men who don't register? "Registration is the law. A man who fails to register may, if prosecuted and convicted, face a fine of up to $250,000 and/or a prison term of up to five years."

Even if they don't go to jail or receive a crippling fine, men who fail to register will be punished: "Men, born after December 31, 1959, who aren't registered with Selective Service won't qualify for Federal student loans or grant programs. This includes Pell Grants, College Work Study, Guaranteed Student/Plus Loans, and National Direct Student Loans."

"The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) makes registration with Selective Service a condition for U.S. citizenship if the man first arrived in the U.S. before his 26th birthday.

"The Workforce Investment Act (formerly called the Job Training Partnership Act - JTPA) offers programs that can train young men for jobs in auto mechanics and other skills. This program is only open to those men who register with Selective Service. Only men born after December 31, 1959, are required to show proof of registration.

"A man must be registered to be eligible for jobs in the Executive Branch of the Federal government and the U.S. Postal Service. Proof of registration is required only for men born after December 31, 1959. "

States have their own punishments fro failing to register -- often drastic.

And here is my favorite line from the Selective Service: "If a draft is ever needed, it must be as fair as possible, and that fairness depends on having as many eligible men as possible registered."

Read that again, and try not to laugh or to punch the computer screen. We could fill volumes writing about that one line, which is singular in it's irony, its gender inequity, it's sheer stupidity. No matter what, no similar law could ever be passed imposing such a burden on women alone. It simply is not possible.

My one question is this: where are the protests about this unfair law?

Where are the feminists who are supposedly interested in gender equity?

Oh, I'm sorry. The reality is, they really aren't interested in gender equity, are they? If they were, they'd have changed this law the way they've changed so many other things.

Asked to drop into his local police station for a 'quick chat', Matthew Wren was only too happy to oblige. A few days earlier, the 38-year-old history teacher was attacked at his school by a pupil who punched him in the chest.

Mr Wren, a man with an unblemished 15-year teaching career, reported the assault and simply assumed that the officers had a few questions to ask him. What happened next came completely out of the blue.

'It turned out I'd basically been tricked into coming to the station,' Mr Wren explains. 'Instead of a chat, I was arrested, finger-printed, swabbed for DNA samples and then locked in a cell for four hours. The police were brutal and insensitive - I couldn't believe what was happening to me.'

After his release on bail, Mr Wren was suspended from his job - and the stress and humiliation of the situation almost destroyed his marriage.

Even the subsequent announcement that no criminal charges were to be laid against him brought little relief: Mr Wren discovered that details of his arrest would remain on his record.

'Once a pupil makes these allegations the whole machinery rolls into motion,' he says. 'It seems a child's word is believed no matter what. No thought is given to the teacher.

Those feelings of abandonment, betrayal and injustice will resonate with many of his colleagues across the country.

According to figures collected by the Government, more than 4,000 complaints are made against teachers and school support staff every year.

Of these allegations, less than one in 20 result in a criminal conviction. While a reassuringly small percentage, the figures offer little consolation for those whose reputations are needlessly dragged through the mud.

Once an allegation is made, a teacher is suspended and banned from talking to colleagues - effectively, assumed to be guilty until proven innocent. If subsequently cleared of wrongdoing, his or her career may still be blighted.

Even the taxpayer suffers: the cost of providing cover for a suspended teacher is about £30,000 a year.

But what is perhaps most worrying of all is that pupils seem very aware of their power.One child of just seven recently threatened to ruin a headmaster's career by saying: 'I will get you suspended.'

And it's clear that unscrupulous parents are playing the system in a bid to win compensation from local education authorities.

Now teachers are demanding change. They want anonymity for those accused and say heads should deal with more complaints themselves, avoiding the unnecessary involvement of police and outside authorities. A growing lobby of MPs agrees.

'A lot of children know their rights but not their responsibilities - they will tell their teachers: "I can get you sacked"'

'Allegations proven to be true must be punished,' said MP Barry Sheerman, chairman of the Commons Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families, which this week published a report on the issue.

'But the vast majority of complaints made against school staff have little or no foundation. My committee heard shocking evidence about the treatment of accused staff and the devastating impact unfounded allegations of misconduct can have.'

And those who suffer are often the most upstanding and selfless members of our society.

In September 2003, Judi Sunderland, now 60, decided to take a job at the Immanuel Church Of England Community College in Bradford - a school struggling with poor attendance and discipline problems.

Her husband Brian had recently suffered a stroke, forcing him to retire from his job as a special needs co-ordinator.

'He wasn't expected to live and the experience made me re-evaluate my own life,' she says. 'I decided that I wanted to do something for my local community.'

But three months into the job, those aspirations were dashed. Hearing an altercation in a corridor near to her office, she found a boy of 13 arguing with a teaching assistant.

'I crossed the corridor and stood in front of him, with my right hand on the wall to get his attention,' she said. 'His reaction was to slide down the wall until he was sitting in the corner. He kicked out his legs so I had to step back. Then he pushed himself back up the wall and got to his feet.

'I told him he either had to do what he'd been told or come to my office. His response was to kick me hard on my left shin and to call me a "f****** fat c***" and other unrepeatable names as he tried to run away.

I grabbed hold of him from behind, in a bear hug, just to restrain him. I wasn't holding him so tight that he couldn't pull away - which, in fact, he did. The other children were goading him, saying: "Go on, hit her! We'll be your witnesses."

'I calmly got hold of him again and he started kicking out at my legs. He spread-eagled himself at the doorway to my office and then, when I gently removed his hands from the door, he walked inside.

'I thought it was all over - he'd had his little tantrum. He sat quietly in a chair, while I sent someone to get a senior member of staff.'

The incident lasted a matter of seconds. But the fallout from it continues to be felt six years on.Within days, Judi was informed that the boy had made an allegation of assault to the police.

Stunned to the core, she was signed off sick.

A five-hour police interview followed when she was told that the boy claimed she had grabbed him by the throat, slammed him against the wall, scratched his wrist and kneed him in the back.

Judi was suspended, named in a report in the local press and then had to wait until June 2005 for the case to come to court. When it did, the trial collapsed within ten minutes.

Not only was the boy unwilling to testify, but new forensic evidence proved Judi could not have been responsible for some of the his bruises.

But although the judge told her that she could leave court 'without a stain on your character', that would prove not to be the case.

The school carried out its own inquiry and a year later, in July 2006, the panel ruled against her by a two-to-one majority, deciding that she had committed an unlawful act.

Despite this, they found that there were mitigating circumstances and that she could have her job back. Not wanting such a blemish on her record, Judi appealed. The appeal failed and she resigned.

But still that was not the end of it. Three of Judi's grandchildren regularly appear on stage, in adverts and TV dramas. Legally, they have to be accompanied by an adult to castings and performances and anyone but a parent needs a licence to do this. And so Judi applied to the local education authority for permission to act as their official chaperone. She was turned down - the reason being that her record showed she assaulted a pupil.

Judi has no right of appeal and to this day cannot comprehend how a case that failed in a criminal court can continue to blight her life.

'For a teacher to be accused of assaulting a child is the worst thing that can happen,' she said. There is a definite culture among children "to get teacher done". But I feel very bitter towards the school and the governors who failed to support me.'

It is a point taken up by teacher's union the NASUWT, which has campaigned on the issue for almost two decades. During that time, they have kept a record of the number of their members accused of physical or sexual assaults. In 1991, there were 44, a figure that rose to 108 in 1996 and 192 in 2007.

Of those 192, 173 resulted in no further action being taken against the individual, eight are unresolved and just 11 ever reached court. Of those, only seven resulted in a conviction.

Why are the numbers rising? Chris Keates, the union's general secretary, thinks she knows why.

'A lot of children know their rights but not their responsibilities,' she says. 'They will tell their teachers: "I can get you sacked. You can't come near me, you can't touch me." Making an allegation against a teacher is a retaliatory act.'

She and other teachers' leaders believe that anonymity should be given to the accused teacher, in much the same way as it is given to children or rape victims. This would prevent reputations being damaged before even a prima facie case is established.

Secondly, there are calls for those who make unfounded allegations to be brought to book - to deter others. Even an unproven allegation can be highly damaging. It's not just localised gossip that is the problem. If the accused is arrested by police, the matter will show up on their record in subsequent Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks, making it difficult for them to move jobs.This was of huge concern to Matthew Wren. The teacher, who lives in County Durham, resigned from his job in the wake of the allegations relating to the incident in March 2008, thoroughly fed up with the way that he was treated.

He then launched a High Court battle to prove that his arrest had been unlawful and that details of his arrest should be wiped from his record. In May this year, he won, Northumbria Police accepting they had been in the wrong.

The hope is that now MPs have acknowledged the extent of the problem, the Government will act. It cannot happen soon enough. Every week good teachers are being lost to the profession.Jane Watts, a teacher with 30 years' experience, is one of them.

She was suspended in September 2007 from her job at Duke Street Primary School in Chorley, Lancs, after it was alleged she had smacked a five-year-old girl on the hand.

Despite being cleared by the police, the school and Lancashire County Council pressed on with their own investigation and sacked her.

Although she won the right to return to work in a subsequent appeal, the accusation of gross misconduct was to remain on her record. Suffering from stress and anxiety, and concerned she would be constantly under suspicion, Jane was too ill to return to work. Now, instead of adding to the 20 years she has given to the school, Jane has retired.

Andrew Kidd, head teacher at Duke Street Primary School, confirmed that a member of his staff was dismissed for misconduct, reinstated - and then dismissed again for 'non-attendance'. But he insisted that 'the original finding of misconduct was correct'.

But like Judi Sunderland and Matthew Wren, Jane feels let down by the authorities. 'It was automatically assumed I was guilty,' she says. 'For an honest person who has never been in trouble to be put through that was disgraceful. The worst part by far was being arrested, although to be fair the police were fine with me.'

'I was told I was suspended and that I couldn't even speak to my friends. I went from being an experienced, confident teacher to someone who didn't even like going out of the house. Chorley isn't a big place and I felt that everyone knew about me. They totally shattered my confidence.'And she adds: 'I think it's really unbelievable that a teacher can be treated in this way - nobody should have to go though what I did ever again.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

A friend from across the state pasted and emailed a blog post written by a woman named Marcella Chester. She runs a blog with a peculiar name that I can't remember. Ms. Chester claims to have been raped and writes a blog that . . . well, you can guess what that blog is about. My friend sent it to me only to rile me up -- he thought that would be funny -- but it didn't have that effect. I must be honest, I didn't exactly follow Ms. Chester's point, but in fairness to her, I certainly did not read it closely.

I did see one point I absolutely agree with: ". . . the police announcing a suspect's guilt or filing charges against someone is not proof of guilt."

That is absolutely correct.

And some corollaries must also be true: When the police can't classify a rape claim as "false," often because the nature of the allegation coupled with insufficient evidence prevents such a classification, then THAT is not proof of guilt, and THAT claim should not automatically be considered a "rape." (Note: the implication of the false rape claim denialists is that any rape claim that isn't categorically declared "false" must have been a rape. You know what I'm referring to: if a certain percentage of rape claims are are said to be "false" -- and I know, those people continue to cite that two percent canard -- they dishonestly imply that the remainder -- including all the ones that did not lead to conviction -- were ACTUAL rapes. Ms. Chester wouldn't do that, would she? Would she?)

Another corollary: A woman bragging to a pollster that she was raped, without any attempt on the pollster's part to examine the claim much less consider any defenses thereto, is not proof that a rape occurred. Is it? Is it, Ms. Chester?

I mean, Marcella Chester can't have it both ways, can she? I mean, can she?

HOBE SOUND — A Stuart man was arrested on charges of lying to police when he called 911 to report a woman was being raped Wednesday night.

Thomas A. Butt, 57, dialed the emergency line that night to report that two men were raping a woman behind the Bank of America on U.S. 1.

When Martin County Sheriff’s deputies arrived, they didn’t find anyone except Butt, who was crouching down behind some bushes, according to a sheriff’s report. Butt told deputies the attackers were by a telephone pole but deputies said they found no one there.

Dispatchers told the deputies that Butt had called two other times that night to make false reports. In one call, he reported a burglary in progress but when deputies investigated they found that it wasn’t true, the report states. But also called to report a disabled vehicle on Interstate 95 that might be blocking the road.

Butt faces charges of making a false report using 911, loitering and resisting arrest.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

This is A Tale of Two Crimes, and a vital lesson about how our justice system reacts to them. Read these news accounts because it might explain why this website attracts so many readers who are fed up with the gross, misandric double-standards when it comes to rape and false rape claims. No further comment about these stories can possibly express the rage that is the appropriate reaction to them.

A 12-year-old girl has been given a reprimand for wasting police time after falsely reporting a rape in Reading.

The girl reported she had been raped in Whitley and a 15-year-old boy was arrested. But a police investigation revealed the report to be false.

A spokeswoman said: "We take every report seriously and would not want to discourage anyone from coming forward."_________________________________

Did you catch the part about the boy being arrested? And the dear spokeswoman apologetically urging other rape claimants to come forward -- without mentioning the boy or others like him? Now compare that hideous little story with this one, and try to tell me things are the way they should be:

"The victim said they were playing outdoors and the girl was forced into a wooded area where she was sexually assaulted, where one of the boys raped her," Dennard told The Associated Press.

The three boys — an 8-year-old and two 9-year-olds — appeared in juvenile court Monday afternoon, dwarfed by the courtroom chairs and wearing navy blue jump suits and shackles. Their names were withheld because of their age.

Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head said the boys could not be charged with felony crimes because of their age but could be tried for alleged delinquent acts that could place them in a juvenile facility for up to five years.

The next step will be for the court to schedule a hearing to determine how to proceed in the case, Head said.

Acworth Police Chief Mike Wilkie said one of the boys was accused of threatening to hit the girl with a rock before the alleged assault. Wilkie also said the investigation is "far from over," and investigators are looking into claims that after the alleged attack, the girl talked about it with her friends at a slumber party.

The girl's mother told WGCL-TV in Atlanta, "They do need to be taught a lesson because if they do it to her, they could do it to somebody else. And who knows when they become teenagers what they can do to other girls."

The case involves children from a working class apartment complex. Acworth, 30 miles northwest of Atlanta along the shores of Lake Allatoona, is a town of about 17,000.

Acworth police said their department has never before investigated allegations of rape where all the parties were this young. "This wouldn't be normal anywhere, but especially not Acworth," Dennard said.

At least in this short article, the man, while arrested, was released without being charged. While short on detail as to why the police believe the charge is false, rarely do you see a case so quickly deemed to be such, without concrete proof.

I did not talk about anyone falsely accussed of a crime. The information came from the FBI and it was about people filing false reports. According to the FBI and a Charlotte County organization, 2 percent of police reports for any crime are falsified.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
__________________________________
From: Pierce Harlan Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:54:14 -0700 (PDT)To: christina.hernandez@XXXXXXXXXXXSubject: Re: False rape claims

You are wrong. Please cite the FBI study you are citing -- I am thoroughly familiar with this area, and there is no such study.
________________________________From: christina.hernandez@XXXXXXXXXXXXXSubject: Re: False rape claimsTo: "Pierce Harlan" thefrs@ymail.comDate: Tuesday, July 28, 2009, 1:57 PM

I apologize if your findings are different, but as a local reporter, I had to get my information from a local rape crisis organization. The organization is very credible and was recommended to me by my producer. If you would like me to forward their contact information I will, but I honestly don't feel I owe anyone who has been wrongly accussed of a crime an apology. In both cases, that WINK News clearly stated last week, both of the "victims" completely made up suspects, so no one was ever accussed of the crimes. I appreciate your concern and let me know if I could be of anymore help to you.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
_______________________________From: Pierce Harlan Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 07:25:30 -0700 (PDT)To: christina.hernandez@XXXXXXXXSubject: Re: False rape claims

. . . . If you ask the sexual assault organization you cited for its authority, it is my firm belief they will not be able to furnish it other than to say "the FBI" or "the Justice Department." Trust me, I've been down this path many times. Your dismissal of my note by referring to "my information," and by refusing even to consider the sources I cited is genuinely disconcerting. It is not "my" information; it is widely respected information that the financially interested sexual assault counseling industry has never been able to challenge. By repeating the misinformation of the sexual assault industry that false claims are essentially a "myth," with no attempt to ascertain if what I am telling you is correct, you are doing a disservice to the falsely accused, and to your station's viewers.

I would appreciate it if you would pass along my comments to your producer. I find your refusal even to consider the scholarly sources I've cited -- which, by the way, no one has been able to refute -- most troubling.

Comment: In the following news report, a locale is stricken by its second reported false rape claim in several days (I say "reported" because, as we have shown on this website, police are adept at making the vast majority of these false claims go away with no embarrassment to the accusers), yet the news report printed below this comment uses this as the occasion to spread the canard that false reporting is rare, and that the victims of false reporting are female.

This news report epitomizes the reason we started this website.

The sexual assault counseling industry's assertions that only two percent of all rape claims are false and that this figure mirrors reports of other crimes are, to put it charitably, devious canards. Yet, we still have reporters like Christina Hernandez who, unfortunately, repeat their assertions without refutation or balance.

In the news report below, the two percent statistic is tossed off with no authority beyond the serene ipsedixit of the sexual assault counselor who is cited. In fact, as we have repeatedly demonstrated, this figure that has been thoroughly discredited. See e.g., this law review article that traced that stat to its disingenuous origins, for example, or this piece (". . . no study has ever been published which sets forth an evidentiary basis for the ‘two percent false rape complaint’ thesis . . . .") Nevertheless, the canard is repeated so often, it has taken on a truth of its own, like the Nazi "Big Lie."

In addition, FBI statistics show that false reporting of sexual assault is fourfold greater than the average for all crimes. The Politics of Sexuality, Barry M. Dank, Editor in Chief, Vol. 3 at 36, n. 8.

The most authoritative study ever conducted on the subject of false rape reports, the Kanin report, showed 41% of all rape claims in the area sampled were not just false but recanted in the face of overwhelming evidence that the allegation was false.

And we need to repeat this point: in the sexual assault field, claims classified as "false" are only those that can be categorically declared lies, but it is well to remember that the number of actual false claims is certainly higher. Rape is not a claim that can always readily be declared "false," given that it often comes down to "he said/she said" evidence. So if, on the one end, there is a certain percentage of claims that are considered "false," and on the other end, a small percentage of claims that end in conviction of rape, how do we classify the claims in the middle? In between the obviously false and the claims that lead to conviction, the vast majority of rape claims are dismissed somewhere along the way because of insufficient evidence (which means there was not enough evidence to make out one or more elements of the crime, even if a trier of fact believed the evidence -- hardly a technicality) or because the accuser decides not to pursue the claim or the jury just doesn't buy it. To suggest that all of these rape claims that fall between the obviously "false" (due primarily to recantation) and those that end in conviction, are, by necessity, "rapes," is dishonest in the extreme. See here. Yet that is the implication of the paid sexual assault counseling industry.

Unfortunately, no amount of objectively verifiable scholarship debunking the erroneous statistic continuously trotted out will ever cause its advocates to back away from it. The financially interested sexual assault counseling industry often (and I don't know for certain about this particular case -- but often) is not seeking to advance facts, but rather its ideological view of the world -- and it is seeking to justify its existence by fomenting rape hysteria.

In addition, the story below would have us believe that the the true victims false rape claims are the future, unknown, hypothetical, phantom, possible, could-be, even unborn rape victims who might be, possibly will be, may be dissuaded by such lies from coming forward of actual crimes. Most assuredly, these hypothetical women are victims of false rape claims. But the primary victims of false rape claims are men and boys falsely accused of rape.

Ms. Hernandez would do well to spend several days reading the true life horror stories of men and boys falsely accused of rape, recounted on this website.

The fact that apparently the false claims did not name specific males is not pertinent to the issue. Innumerable young men have been arrested and subject to the terror of possibly years behind bars based on rape lies that didn't name a specific male. One only needs to spend some time reviewing this website to understand this. Even when they are not named, every rape lie puts innocent men and boys at risk -- usually men and boys who are black or Hispanic. False rape accusers often concoct a "scary" minority as their pretend attackers to lend plausibility to their prevarications. So, you see, this is not only a gender issue, it is also often a race issue.

In the news story below, the primary victims of false rape claims are completely ignored, and their victimization dismissed by insisting that false claims are a myth. Although false reporting of rape is a crime whose victims are almost exclusively male, the entire discussion in this area has become so embroiled in the politicized, radical feminist sexual assault milieu that even mentioning it as a potentially significant problem for men is verboten because such view does not conform to the rape culture metanarrative that insists women are sexually tyrannized, oppressed and subjugated by the patriarchy (and let's be honest, that's a code word for "men"). When the crime of false rape reporting is discussed at all, it is almost always discussed through a gynocentric filter, a gender feminist lens that blinks at the harm it causes innocent men. Misinformation is the engine that drives this culture of female victimization, and rape hysteria and the minimization of false rape claims are its noxious emissions.

Reporter Hernandez would do well to contact me the next time she is tempted to write a story like this. She has done a disservice to the countless men and boys falsely accused of this vile crime by suggesting their victimization is rare. Here is the news story:

Monday, July 27, 2009

Lack of evidence and lack of cooperation from the complainants. These soldiers were rightly released. However, we don't know if charges will still be filed, or prosecutors will push forward in an attempt to convict. Based on the lack of evidence, they shouldn't.

Golani Brigade soldiers suspected of drugging, then raping two women soldiers while on furlough released from custody; 'it was clear the story was a fabricated,' their attorney says

Two Golani Brigade soldiers who were arrested over the weekend for suspicion of raping two female soldiers after spiking their drinks with a date-rape drug were released from custody Wednesday after investigators failed to gather sufficient evidence against them.

The case is expected to be closed without indictments.

"I was certain that the truth would eventually come out; it was a false charge," one of the soldiers told his attorney after hearing of the decision to release him.

On Tuesday the Military Prosecution announced that the investigation may be transferred to the police due to the fact that the soldiers were on furlough when the alleged incident took place, but during Wednesday morning's hearing, which was attended by Military Advocate General Avi Mandelblit, it was decided that in light of the stalled investigation and limited cooperation from the two complainants there was no reason to ask the court to extend the suspects' remand.

The attorneys representing the two soldiers, Shai Roda, Yahel Ben Oved and Boaz Reuven, expressed their satisfaction with the decision to release their clients.

"There was no justification to arrest them in the first place," Roda said, "it was clear that the women soldiers had fabricated the story.

"I am considering filing a motion to launch an investigation against the complainants and demand that the soldiers be compensated for the injustice done to them towards the end of their military service," he said.

On Friday one of the female soldiers arrived at a police station in central Israel and complained that she had been raped by a soldier the previous day. A short while later her friend lodged a similar complaint.

The Golani soldiers were arrested on Saturday and later interrogated by Military Police.

According to the female soldiers' testimonies, they arrived at the home of one of the male soldiers in central Israel at around midnight, where they were coaxed into drinking alcoholic beverages that were spiked with a sedative, apparently a date-rape drug. They claimed they were raped shortly thereafter.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Slightly off topic, but welcome to the hysteria and zero tolerance policies that infest our schools. Parents couldn't attend the annual sports day, because a fear of paedophiles?

The comment from Paul Blunt suggests that all the parents, when unsupervised, would become unsavory characters, and that they can't be left unsupervised around children.

Really, this isn't so off topic. The first line of the article says it all. By banning parents, the school is banning kidnappers and paedophiles. Parents were upset, and rightfully so.

My one and only question to the administration that came up with this ridiculous idea: How many times have children been kidnapped or been the target of paedophiles at this event in the past? I suspect we all know the answer. But, hey, why let facts get in the way of good old fashioned hysteria. Especially when the hysteria isn't really directed at "parents" but at "fathers."

Parents were banned from attending an inter-school sports day to protect pupils from kidnappers and paedophiles.

The host school said they could not prevent 'unsavoury' characters from sneaking in.

More than 270 pupils from four local primaries took part in the East Beds School Sports Partnership Athletics Day at Sandy Upper School in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire last week.

Youngsters aged seven and eight competed in the long jump, hurdles, sprint, 400 metres and relay races. Their parents, many of whom wanted to take time off work to attend, condemned the ban.

One mother, who did not wish to be named, said: 'They said they just could not estimate how many parents were going to be there, and were worried that they couldn't stop someone who shouldn't be there from being there. But I think it's just health and safety gone mad.'

Mother-of-three Emma Collett, 33, of Biggleswade, has a child at St Andrew's Lower School in the town.

She said: 'I would have taken time off work to support my child. It would have meant a lot to me.

'I'm all for measures to protect the safety of children but lines must be drawn and common sense must prevail.'

Paul Blunt of the East Bedfordshire School Sports Partnership, which ran the event, said the 'ultimate fear' was that a child could be abducted.

He said: 'If we let parents into the school they would have been free to roam the grounds. All unsupervised adults must be kept away from children.

'An unsavoury character could have come in and we just can't put the children in the event or the students at the host school at risk like that.

'The ultimate fear is that a child is hurt or abducted, and we must take all measures possible to prevent that.'

Mr Blunt confirmed he had received a complaint from an irate mother but defended his decision.

He added: 'None of the children taking part attend the host school so it would've been really hard to police.

'We did a risk assessment and concluded that we couldn't guarantee the children's safety.

'The number of children involved meant it would have been hard to ensure people were who they claimed to be.'

Local councillor Anita Lewis also backed the decision, saying: 'The safety of the children is paramount.

'It was decided that following a risk assessment we could not adequately supervise up to 100 plus adults on the school site.'

However, Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said it was 'totally unreasonable' to ban parents from a sports day.

'It's clearly a serious misjudgement. One of the great pleasures of sports day is that their parents can watch them take part,' he said.

'If you followed the thinking of this ban you wouldn't be able to let you child out of the front door.'

Thursday, July 23, 2009

According to this story, Racquel Santiago, 28, called the police to complain that neighborhood youngsters had cut her tire. "Because police didn't witness the alleged vandalism, they could not make an arrest, but offered to take a report and refer the matter to a juvenile detective." That wasn't good enough for Santiago, so she became disorderly. She refused to give the police accurate information about her identity, she bit her own arm, and she threatened to kill herself. She was taken into custody, and on the way to the police station she somehow managed to remove her handcuffs. At the station, she tried to hit a police officer "with a large bottle of hand sanitizer."

Oh, and she "threatened she would accuse officers who arrested her of rape." But Santiago has a perfect justification for that: "This was not my fault. I was the one who called the police," Santiago said. "I got aggravated when they told me they couldn't do anything," Santiago told the judge, who set her bond at $500.

That, perhaps, sums up the justification of many false rape accusers as well as anything: "That was not my fault." You see, they are just victims of something that some man did. Their offenses are best treated by counseling and understanding, not jail time, much less significant jail time.

Incidentally, Santiago is pregnant, and tested positive for marijuana.

Gentlemen, when it comes to the false rape claim epidemic, we must know our enemy. The ones who actually tell the lies usually aren't some pathetic, self-righteous Womyn's Studies refugees who hate men and see sexual assault oozing from every crevice (that group, however, plays a significant role in enabling the offenders). The ones who actually tell the lies are more often the Racquel Santiagos of the world, who know that the rape claim card is perhaps the single most powerful weapon a human being possesses (and it's generally available only to women). And they wield it with impunity.

This is a prime example of a "media" outlet, using past history to fan the flames, and presume that once accused, always suspect. In this case, the rumor was an easy one for people to believe, due to Kelly's past trial, and the popular 'well, something must have happened' idea that most people entertain.

And it now looks like the original site has changed the story to read that he MAY be investigated.Unfortunately, the original post will have some thinking that he raped a 17 year old girl.

A report that R&B star R. Kelly is under investigation for a sexual relationship with an underage girl is false, according to police.

Citing an anonymous source "close to R Kelly," Media Take Out reported Wednesday that police raided the singer's home in suburban Olympia Fields in connection with an alleged relationship between Kelly and a 17-year-old girl. The report also claimed that "Olympia Fields Police are still tenaciously pursuing the case."

An Olympia Fields Police Department spokesperson, however, denied Media Take Out's report to the Huffington Post.

"No, none of it is true," she said. The site's claim that Olympia Fields Police had confirmed the report was also false, she said.

A spokesman for Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said their office had no knowledge of any investigation.

A spokesman for R. Kelly also disputed the report, calling it "wildly exaggerated and inaccurate" in a statement:

"A wildly exaggerated and inaccurate report has been circulating on the Internet that Olympia Fields police showed up at R. Kelly's house with a search warrant just before the singer left for his three-week concert tour in Africa last month and then searched the place looking for a missing 17-year-old girl.

"This is completely false. No police ever showed up at Kelly's house with a search warrant nor was his house ever searched. It is also not true, as the unsubstantiated report claimed, that any such girl ever stayed overnight in Kelly's house or that she had been there but left shortly before some mythical police search.

"Kelly's attorneys have informed the police that they will cooperate fully with any investigation."

Media Take Out has since updated their story, now allowing that "R Kelly may be investigated by the Illinois police for committing statutory rape" (emphasis added).

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Rape. It’s a hugely emotive issue, so let’s get the basic stuff out of the way first.

Rape and other sexual assaults are, without doubt, the second most heinous crimes on our statute book, ranking just behind those offences which result in actual death but well ahead of all the other assaults that can be perpetrated against an individual.

At the core of the justice system, which exists to punish those who commit crimes, is the expectation that victims will tell the truth about the things which have happened to them.

Lying subverts the whole process and, arguably, to lie in court is to commit a far worse offence than the one committed against you. Quite rightly, the courts are quick to punish those who lie to them – as Jonathan Aitken and Jeffrey Archer found out to their cost.

All of this makes it even more remarkable that anyone would want to falsely claim that they have been raped, yet such cases appear to be on the increase.

The conviction of Jennifer Day is just one of several cases this year - yet each case is apparently no deterrent to others.

One of the reasons for this may be the comparatively light sentences handed out to the accusers.

A man convicted falsely of rape faces a sentence of life imprisonment, whereas the false accuser’s jail term is unlikely to exceed the two years given to Ms Day. That is a heck of a discrepancy, whichever way you look at it.

The obvious answer is to make the punishment for lying about the offence akin to the punishment which the wrongfully accused would have faced if convicted of it.

This would bring lying into line with the law on criminal attempts; attempting to commit a crime and failing attracts exactly the same penalty as committing the crime in virtually all situations.

Would Ms Day – or any other woman convicted of the offence in the past – have done something quite so foolish if she had known it would lead to a potential life sentence?

As Judge Ian Graham rightly pointed out to Ms Day, lying about rape makes it that much more difficult for other rape victims to have their cases taken seriously and that much more difficult for prosecutors to secure convictions in even the most deserving of cases.

What he could have gone on to say is that liars strike at the very heart of our justice system. Judges now need proper powers to sentence them.

Ben Roethlisberger's hometown newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, is not naming Mr. Roethlisberger's accuser because, it declares through writer Jonathan D. Silver, "The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette does not name alleged victims of sexual assault." They've even redacted her name from a document filed of public record (the complaint) so that you won't find out something that even the court doesn't care if you know. (Luckily, other publications aren't so constipated or left-leaning politically correct -- they've printed her name without the self-righteous, gender feminist drama of pretending to protect womankind.)

We have frequently discussed the unjust double standard in asymmetrical anonymity: the mere allegation of rape by any female, without any other evidence and no matter how far-fetched, invites a man's name to be splashed all over the newspaper, TV, radio and Internet for the world to titillate at the details of his humiliation. Men and boys falsely accused of this vile crime have been beaten and killed and have killed themselves; they've been fired from their jobs and lost their businesses; they've lost their wives, their girlfriends and their long-time friends. Rarely do they ever come out of it whole, and for many, the ghost of a false rape claim trails them for the rest of their lives. In contrast, the accuser retains lifelong anonymity, either by law (UK) or, among news outlets, as a courtesy and bow to political forces that insist on it (US).

The double standard of naming the presumed innocent accused while not naming the accuser (who, as every regular reader here knows, could be lying), is typically seen in the context of criminal cases. The persons behind the double standard justify it on the ground that to name the accuser would serve to "discourag[e] . . . victims from coming forward."

We don't want to discourage possible rape victims from "coming forward". . . to do what? Well, for one thing, we don't want to discourage them from reporting a crime that is regarded as the second most serious on our criminal books (after murder) given that such reporting can help bring the alleged rapist to justice, and thereby protect other innocent women. There are arguments justifying anonymity in this instance -- I don't happen to agree with them, but they do, at least, have a semblance of rationality.

So, exactly why should this be applicable to rape allegations made in connection with civil actions where, long after the alleged incident, no criminal complaint has been filed?

The fact is, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and like-minded publications do not want to discourage women from "coming forward" to file civil actions that, if successful, will only enrich the coffers of the accuser and her counsel but will leave the putative rapist on the street where he can rape other women.

What precise public policy interest is served by not naming those accusers who do what they do for themselves? Why does a private complaint involving a private cause of action between private citizens justify such special treatment?

The answer is, it doesn't, of course. It is a bow to political pressures and political correctness by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and other newspapers that do the same thing. It is not fair to Mr. Roethlisberger or to the other persons civilly sued for torts based on alleged sexual assault. And it is not fair to other men the anonymous accuser might someday accuse -- they will have a much more difficult time learning that she's a serial accuser if the secrecy of her identity is guarded with all the tenacity that Clark Kent uses to keep people from knowing he's Superman.

The fact is, asymmetrical anonymity can never really be justified, in either the criminal or the civil law settings. Alan Dershowitz said it best: "People who have gone to the police and publicly invoked the criminal process and accused somebody of a serious crime such as rape must be identified," he said. "In this country there is no such thing and should not be such a thing as anonymous accusation. If your name is in court it is a logical extension that it should be printed in the media. How can you publish the name of the presumptively innocent accused but not the name of the accuser?"

In the news story printed below this comment, another young male celebrity has been accused of sexual assault. This time it's Super Bowl quarterback Ben Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers. His accuser apparently never pursued criminal charges, and her allegation is made in the context of a civil suit seeking monetary relief. The burden of proof in a civil action is a preponderance of the evidence (more likely than not) as opposed to the criminal standard, beyond a reasonable doubt.

Those who assert that false rape claims are a myth often raise what they think is a rhetorical question: what possible motive could a woman have to lie about rape? Of course women have plenty of motives to lie. The most authoritative, even-hand study of false rape claims ever conducted demonstrated this beyond any question. The better question is, since false rape claims are so easy to make and almost impossible to completely disprove, why don't more women make them? The answer, I suspect, lies in the fact that most women are decent people. The ones who aren't, though, can, and often do, destroy the lives and reputations of innocent males based on nothing more than a rape allegation.

Why do women file civil claims alleging rape? Many if not most such claims against famous young men seem to amount to nothing more than shakedowns. This website is one of the few in the world devoted exclusively to giving voice to those falsely accused of rape and sexual assault, and we do that by telling their stories. Anyone who thinks rape accusers don't often lie out of selfish motives would do well to spend a couple of days reading on this website the true-life accounts of the countless men and boys falsely accused of this terrible crime.

We don't know what happened here beyond what the news report shows. We do know that countless young men in the limelight are subjected to false rapes claims. It is an occupational hazard of being a famous young male.

Some might have forgotten that now-retired and beloved ex-Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome Bettis once was subjected to a rape claim. In that case, the District Attorney said there was "clear" evidence that the accuser's uncle planned to use the allegation to extort money from Bettis, and no charges were brought against the popular Steeler.

At that time of Bettis' exoneration, then-Steelers' coach Bill Cowher made two points that are applicable here: First, Cowher hoped Bettis' exoneration "gets the same amount of attention as the initial headlines got." Amen, Coach. An unsubstantiated rape claim by a lone accuser garners big headlines, but what of the exoneration? Does not the press owe the presumed innocent male a duty to furnish equal publicity? In Roethlisberger's case, since there are no criminal charges, there won't be an exoneration, but my bet is there will be a dismissal with prejudice. Will there be the same sort of news coverage for it?

In addition, Coach Cowher said this about the Bettis exoneration: "Cowher said the matter illustrated that players are in the public eye and must be careful."

Hmm . . . If the Coach publicly stated that young women need to be careful in their dealings with men, the same crowd that insists false rape claims are a "myth" would brand such a statement "victim blaming" and probably call Cowher a "misogynist."

The fact is, it's damn good advice for both genders -- but especially for famous young males who are too often subjected to shakedowns by women who realize the power of a rape lie.

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has been named a defendant in a defamation lawsuit that was filed last week in Reno, Nev.

A copy of the lawsuit was not available last night, but a court docket entry showed that a civil complaint was filed on Friday in Washoe County, Nev., accusing Mr. Roethlisberger of libel and slander.

The lawsuit was filed by a woman identified as Andrea McNulty. It named Mr. Roethlisberger and eight other defendants. They include: John Koster, Guy Hyder, Mark Masters, Dave Monroe, Mike Rosenow, Debbie Neall, Bryan Casuscelli and Stacy Dingman.

The complaint was filed by attorney Calvin R. Dunlap, of Reno, who could not be reached for comment.

Atlanta-based sports attorney David Cornwell issued a statement on Mr. Roethlisberger's behalf late last night.

"This weekend Andrea McNulty served Ben Roethlisberger with a civil complaint accusing him of sexually assaulting her in July 2008. Ben has never sexually assaulted anyone; especially Andrea McNulty. The timing of the lawsuit and the absence of a criminal complaint and a criminal investigation are the most compelling evidence of the absence of any criminal conduct. If an investigation is commenced, Ben will cooperate fully and Ben will be fully exonerated.

"Ben will not be baited into a public discussion about his personal life, but we will defend him vigorously. The limited value that Ms. McNulty derived from public disclosure of these viciously false allegations is the only value she will ever receive from Ben in this case," the statement said.

Melinda D. McBride, 33, of Rogers, has been arrested and cited for filing a false police report, Class D Felony. Investigators determined that McBride made a false report regarding an allegation of rape. The report made on June 22, 2009 stated that McBride told officers that earlier in the morning she had received a ride home from a local bar, from an unknown male. McBride made allegations she was raped by this male at his residence in Rogers.

It appears that in the following story, the young woman's story has changed several times, and even the D.A. wouldn't prosecute. DCS couldn't even find anything amiss. And anyone who has had dealings with DCS knows they are tenacious in finding something.

And once again, we see him named, and she retains anonymity.

KNOXVILLE — Attorneys presented opening statements today in the hearing of Halls High School math teacher Corey DeHart before the Knox County school board.

One described DeHart as a teacher who took advantage of a female student who was having trouble at home and confided in him. Another described him as an amazing teacher who had a gift for reaching students but was picked out by a student who wanted attention.

DeHart has been accused of sexual contact with a female student, who was 16 at the time of the alleged incident. The student, now 18, will also testify before the school board.

This afternoon Marty McCampbell, attorney representing Knox County School superintendent Jim McIntyre who’s bringing tenure revocation charges against DeHart, said although charges against DeHart were dismissed in Knox County Criminal Court, no jury ever heard the student’s story.

“She turned to Mr. DeHart when she was having trouble in her home life,” McCampbell said. “That teacher she confided in took advantage of her vulnerability. He didn’t refer her to a guidance counselor.”

The fallout from the alleged incident included the student being subjected to ridicule of students at school.

The student “is going to tell the entire truth,” McCampbell said.

It is true that she first denied the allegations when she first spoke with Halls Principal Mark Duff and the Department of Children’s Services.

“She did not have the courage to tell the whole story,” McCampbell said. But after working with her therapist “she was able to come back and tell the whole story.”

Virginia McCoy, who is representing DeHart, countered that the story the board is to hear is “about a girl who told a lie to a friend, who was a boy... and that lie got bigger and bigger the longer she told it until it got ridiculous.”

The student also gave conflicting accounts of what occurred.

McCoy noted that the district attorney couldn’t prove the charges and dismissed the indictment.

“DCS ... are zealots from the floor to the ceiling. If they could find something, they would have found something,” McCoy said. The department issued an unfounded determination.

The school system “has charged (DeHart) with things the district attorney and DCS opted not to pursue.”

McCoy said she would produce witnesses, many of them former students of DeHart who were also in class with the student.

“You’ll find that she’s not a credible witness,” she said.

The board should conclude that DeHart “was badly treated by this system” and reinstate him with back pay.

The school board will decide whether the charges warrant revocation of DeHart’s tenure.

DeHart was placed on paid leave until December 2007, then on unpaid leave.

DeHart began teaching at Halls, his alma mater, in 1998 and was tenured in 2001.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) - The 25-year-old woman who reported sexual assault Wednesday in her home was re-interviewed Thursday. She admitted to fabricating the entire story.

Kent County will charge her for filing a false police report.

The woman originally reported that a man came to her door, claiming to be a maintenance worker. He said he needed to repair some drywall, and then attacked her. He was armed with a knife, she told police and 24 Hour News 8.

Two weeks ago, a maintenance worker started patching a wall in the woman's apartment, and had not finished the job, she said. So when a man came to her door Wednesday, claiming to work for maintenance, the woman said his story was not completely suspicious.

She lives with her fiance and parents in the 4100 block of Spruce Hollow.

When 24 Hour News 8 spoke with her Thursday, all she would say is that she retracted her statement.

There have been a number of false reports for assault and sexual assault in the past few years.

Friday, July 17, 2009

On the right side of this page is a decidedly unscientific poll intended to informally gauge our readers' views on this issue: What is the foremost problem for those falsely accused of rape? We limit it to three choices, and for those who follow this issue closely, the choice is likely to be difficult.

The false rape movement is reaching the stage where we need to focus on certain issues in order to have a political impact and these seem to be the hot-button areas that cry out for reform.

Shes the daughter of a police officer, who wasn't being 'serious' when it slipped out she was raped. And that joking around caused an innocent man to spend 22 hours in jail, and to have his reputation destroyed in the city he lives in, and his health has suffered as well.

Why? So her boyfriend wouldn't find out she cheated on him. Very nice.

A policeman's daughter who willingly took part in sex and bondage with a former boyfriend made a false rape claim against him the next morning, a court heard.

Tracey Knowles, 20, met Alex Warren, with whom she had once had a relationship, in a bar before the pair went to Mr Warren's house and had "some very uninhibited sex indeed".

The next morning, after leaving his house, Miss Knowles made the rape allegation to several people including her parents - who called the police.

Mr Warren was arrested and locked up for 22 hours by police investigating her bogus complaint, Gloucester Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Lisa Hennessy said played the jury part of Knowles' video interview with police. During the interview she said: "I got undressed into my underwear and went into the bed. I was going off to sleep when he seemed to get quite close to me. I didn't mind a cuddle but I didn't want to have sex with him because we were just friends. "

I said 'I don't want to have sex with you - I just want to be friends.'

She then claimed Mr Warren then used cable ties to fix her wrists to the bed before forcing himself on her. Ms Hennessy said: "Some very uninhibited sex indeed took place between them. It was a very experimental night where pretty much anything went. "

She was now in an awkward position becaus she had to account for that night to her then-boyfriend. "

She was also annoyed that the sex had failed to win back Mr Warren so we say she cooked up a story to cover herself and to gain revenge on him. "

The next evening she told her boyfriend that Mr Warren had raped her. The boyfriend went on 16 June and confronted Mr Warren, accusing him of rape. He was horrified. He contacted her on her Facebook page to find out what her boyfriend meant."

She replied denying that she had alleged rape - although later she said that "it might have slipped out but I was not being serious".

Miss Knowles had also told another friend she had been raped and gradally 'this rather squalid episide took on life of its own", Ms Hennessy said.

Miss Knowles, of South Cerney, near Cirencester, Glos, denies making a false allegation of rape between 15 and 18 June 2008 with intent to pervert the course of public justice. Mr Warren said he was shocked that evening when several CID officers with three cars and a police van turned up and arrested him for rape. He was held for almost a day. "

I was very stressed out after I was released," he said.

"All the neighbours knew I had been arrested. Cirencester is only a small town and everyone knows everyone's business.

"I was very upset."

He said he was prescribed sleeping pills by his doctor and signed off work for two weeks because of the stress.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

We often report about how the myth of male predatory sexual behavior is the engine that drives the culture of rape hysteria, and that false rape claims are its noxious emissions. Here is an example of high tech fear-mongering, a modern-day Chicken Little game that seems to foment hysteria about rape for women already overly wary of men.

NPR's All Things Considered broadcast a story last night about a video game called The Path. It's a variation on the Little Red Riding Hood fable -- a warning to girls about the danger of male strangers. The virtual reality characters (all female) are heading to grandmother's house, and the object is to confront the wolf (the male).

According to the story: "Facing the wolf, you see, is what The Path is about. In each level of the game, you play as one of six sisters. They range in age from 9 to 19, and each of them must make the long trek through the forest. Each must meet her own personal wolf. The moment you step off the path and into the forest, the terror of the game begins. Sunshine fades to murky darkness. You hear low moans but can't tell if they're from pleasure or pain. And you know, all the time, that the wolf is out there waiting. In one of his incarnations, he's a white light that sweeps you into the sky. It feels ecstatic and horrifying at the same time. When it's over, you're left lying in a heap. The game is nothing so much as a rumination on the vulnerabilities of girlhood."

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the report concerns a woman's take on the game when a 15-year-old virtual girl "stumbles into a deserted playground in the forest where a young man, sitting on a bench, offers her a cigarette. Then he sits back on the bench. "He's just sitting there," says [Brenda] Brathwaite. Still: 'The actual thought that ran through my head at the time was, "Oh my God, am I going to be raped?"' Brathwaite claims to have been violently attacked when she was younger.

And, you see, this is where we've come: a young male virtual reality character who furnishes no evidence that he poses a threat to a female character is suspected of being a rapist -- for no reason other than the fact that he is depicted as male.

What other group in our society would tolerate being stereotyped as monsters in this manner? It is a fact that innocent males are assaulted far more frequently than innocent females. Yet the object of this game is the vulnerabilities of girls.

I would suggest this in all seriousness, having studied the issue intently: the male character likely has more to fear about a false rape claim being lodged against him than the female character has about being raped. The fact is that this milieu of rape hysteria in which we find ourselves stranded not only is terribly gender divisive because it encourages females to mistrust males, it also enables false rape accusers to spread their lies with automatic credibility. False accusers know that the very mention of rape instills fear and overwhelming anger in the vast majority of decent people. They also know that virtually any young man who is even accused of this vile act will be considered not just a plausible suspect but a presumed felon.

This virtual reality game is a sad manifestation of a culture gone askew -- a culture where rape hysteria is far too prevalent and downright unhealthy, and where blatant stereotyping of a lone male as a possible rapist is tolerated without even being challenged.

In the news story below, rape charges were dropped against a man who claimed that his accuser, an 11-year-old girl, falsely made the allegation in order to retaliate against him. We are not reprinting the man's name -- it's been redacted here -- because enough damage has been done to him. In the news story, no reason is given why the charges were dropped, and the details regarding the man's defense that the charges were retaliatory are not provided. Of course, the girl's name is not printed by the news source -- her pristine reputation is intact, I am sure we are all happy to know.

You see, this is how it works: an eleven-year-old girl can falsely cry "rape" and cause a respectable adult male -- including a man with a loving family, close friends, a good job and bright future -- to be deprived of his liberty and be forced to endure months of anxiety of years and years of prison time. Even if the charges are dropped, the man is forever tainted as a potential rapist. Any time a prospective employer or anyone else wants to find out about him, all they need do is "Google" his name and they will see the horrid allegation. His good name is, for all practical purposes, destroyed because unlike the allegation of any other serious crime, a rape allegation is one that sticks -- and that's because it is often impossible to disprove a rape claim beyond any scintilla of doubt. That's just the nature of the claim.

And that is why it is a moral imperative that men and boys accused of rape need anonymity until convicted. Rape is different than any other serious crime. Our present system is not fair, and it's not just. But the reality is that because it's "just" men, it is unlikely to change any time soon, unless we start making noise about it.

WAYNESBURG - A Greene County man who was charged with numerous sex-related counts in May stemming from allegations that he raped an 11-year-old girl had all the charges filed against him withdrawn during his preliminary hearing on Monday.

[The man], 35, of Waynesburg was arraigned by Magisterial District Judge Lou Dayich on May 27 on six felony counts of rape, three felony counts each of statutory sexual assault and aggravated indecent assault, and three misdemeanor counts each of indecent assault and corruption of minors.

According to the criminal complaint filed in Dayich's office, the charges were initially filed after state police were called on Feb. 14 to investigate a report of an alleged sexual assault, in which an 11-year-old girl told authorities that [the man] had assaulted her on several occasions.

[The man] denied any wrongdoing and told police that the allegations against him were false and the girl was retaliating against him for various reasons, the complaint states.

He was released on $10, 000 unsecured bail following his arraignment.

During his preliminary hearing Monday before Magisterial District Judge Glenn Bates, however, all the charges filed against [him] were dropped after the commonwealth withdrew the charges, according to a representative from Bates' office.

As of press time, neither Bates' office nor the Greene County District Attorney's office, which prosecuted the case, provided details regarding why the charges were withdrawn.